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M&A, dollar help European stocks to higher close
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 11 - 12 - 2006


European shares ended higher on
Monday as merger and acquisition talk continued to swirl and a
weaker euro helped shares in car makers.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European stocks finished
up 0.52 percent at 1,456.68 points, the sixth successive higher
close, as U.S. shares also gained thanks to takeover activity, according to Reuters.
Merger and acquisition activity continued unabated, with
Brazilian steelmaker CSN bidding $9.6 billion for Anglo-Dutch
rival Corus, trumping an offer made only hours earlier by
India's Tata Steel.
Corus ended 5.5 percent higher on hopes a bid battle would
lead to an even higher offer, lifting stocks across the steel
sector, including Germany's ThyssenKrupp and Salzgitter.
Shares in German tyremaker Continental rose nearly 3 percent
despite Munich-based General Capital Group denying reports of
interest in the company.
Continued acquisition activity in Europe comes at the tail
end of a record year for M&A in the region, and a spate of U.S.
takeover deals reassured investors that companies were
attractive purchases at current prices.
Shares of blue-chip insurer American International Group
rose, helping lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 0.2
percent, after Dubai Ports World said it would sell its U.S.
port operations to an AIG unit.
The tech-laced Nasdaq was up half a percentage point.
With the FTSEurofirst 300 having gained more than 14 percent
since the beginning of the year, analysts said they saw little
to curb the rise in global stock prices.
"There's nothing to knock stocks off their pedestal," said
Bear Stearns economist David Brown. "There's increased appetite
for risk, and people are thinking more constructively of a soft
landing in the United States."
Reuters polls showed that world stock markets were set to
extend their bull run into 2007 but at a slower pace, held back
by valuations and the uncertainty over the extent of a U.S.
economic slowdown next year.
CARS ROAR AHEAD
After European markets closed, ex-Fed Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan punctured the dollar by saying he expected the
greenback to remain weak for a few years. The euro rose as high
as $1.3255 after spending much of the day below $1.32.
Earlier the DJ Stoxx European auto index gained 1.9 percent
on the day, with major players in the dollar zone, such as
DaimlerChrysler, BMW and Porsche all gaining more than 2
percent.
Daimler, BMW and Continental helped lift Frankfurt's DAX
index by 0.7 percent, and Paris's CAC-40 rose 0.8 percent.
But London's FTSE 100 lagged other major European indexes,
ending 0.12 percent higher as index heavyweight Royal
Dutch/Shell lost 0.6 percent on a report that it would cede
control of the Sakhalin-2 field to Gazprom.


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